1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a recording apparatus for feeding and transporting a medium and recording data on the medium which is being transported and a medium transporting method.
2. Related Art
In the related art, a printer which is a recording apparatus includes an auto sheet feeder (hereinafter, referred to as ASF) (for example, see JP-A-2005-96450). When a printing operation starts, a sheet of paper stored in the ASF is fed by the driving of the ASF and a front end of the sheet is automatically positioned at a printing start position.
The ASF starts the feeding of a next sheet after a previous sheet has been fed and ejected. However, in this feeding method, since the feeding operation of the next sheet starts after the previous sheet has been ejected, a gap between the previous sheet and the next sheet exists and a relatively long standby time occurs between the completion of a printing operation of the previous sheet and the start of a printing operation of the next sheet. Accordingly, printing throughput deteriorates.
In order to solve this problem, JP-A-2005-96450 discloses a printing apparatus (recording apparatus) for consecutively transporting a previous sheet and a next sheet with a predetermined gap between the previous sheet and the next sheet. According to this printing apparatus, an ejection operation of the previous sheet and a feeding operation of the next sheet are simultaneously performed so as to reduce a standby time between the completion of a printing operation of the previous sheet and the start of a printing operation of the next sheet. Accordingly, it is possible to improve printing throughput.
In order to detect the front end of the fed sheet, a paper detection sensor for detecting a front end of the sheet is provided between a feeding roller and a paper transporting roller of the ASF. However, if the sheets are consecutively fed such that a gap is not ensured between the previous sheet and the next sheet, the paper detection sensor cannot detect the front end of the sheet. In addition, sheets may be double fed in a state in the rear end of the previous sheet and the front end of the next sheet partially overlap. Accordingly, even when the sheets are consecutively fed, a predetermined gap should be maintained between the previous sheet and the next sheet.
For example, in JP-A-2005-96450, in order to prevent double feeding of the sheets, the transport of the next sheet (a recording sheet of a next page) starts after the rear end of the previous sheet (a recording sheet of a current page) passes through the transport roller such that the previous sheet and the next sheet are prevented from being double fed. That is, after the rear end of the previous sheet passes through the transport roller, the next sheet is transported. When the previous sheet is transported, the next sheet is transported by the same transport amount as the previous sheet.
However, JP-A-2005-96450 does not describe a transport speed.